Harvey Weinstein’s retrial on sexual-assault and rape charges in New York began April 23, with prosecutors saying of the disgraced movie mogul: “The defendant wanted their bodies, and the more they resisted, the more forceful he got.”
During her opening statement, Assistant District Attorney Shannon Lucey outlined the charges against Weinstein, which stem from alleged incidents involving three women. Two of those women — Jessica Mann and Miriam Haley — were involved in the 2020 case against Weinstein, which resulted in a guilty verdict that was ultimately overturned, leading to the retrial. Prosecutors also brought a new sex-crime charge involving a third women, whom Lucey identified for the first time as Kaja Sokola, as The Associated Press reports. (Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and repeatedly denied all allegations against him.)
Sokola, a former model from Poland, accused Weinstein of assaulting her at a Manhattan hotel room in 2006. She claimed that Weinstein told her he wanted to show her some movie scripts, but when they were alone, he allegedly pinned her onto a bed and forcibly performed oral sex on her.
Lucey also mentioned another allegation Sokola had brought against Weinstein: She claimed the producer molested her in 2002 when she was 16 years old. That allegation was part of a class-action lawsuit filed in 2018 against Weinstein, which eventually settled. The new sex-crime charge Weinstein is facing is only related to the alleged 2006 incident.
In outlining the accusations against him, Lucey said Weinstein used “dream opportunities as weapons” and “held the golden ticket” for aspiring actresses: “a chance to make it, or not.” She added that Weinstein maintained a “profoundly psychological” and “physical” hold over his victims (via the BBC).
Meanwhile, Weinstein’s defense attorney, Arthur Aidala, said the prosecution’s case is “going to fall flat on its face.” He suggested that the alleged assaults were actually consensual encounters, describing the alleged victims as “flirtatious,” and calling them “friends with benefits” who “wanted” Weinstein.
“What you’re going to learn about all three of these women is that they realized very quickly, Harvey Weinstein, he’s got the key to that room they want to go to,” Aidala said. “None of them have the qualifications to get into that room.”
In the first 2020 case, Weinstein was convicted on two out of five charges, one for a felony sex crime, the other for third-degree rape. Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison, but last spring an appeals court overturned the conviction. The ruling stated that prosecutors should not have been allowed to let some of Weinstein’s other accusers, whose allegations were not related to the charges he faced, testify.
Along with the New York case, Weinstein was also convicted of rape and sexual assault, and sentenced to 16 years in prison, in a separate California case. He’s filed an appeal in that case, as well.
From Rolling Stone US
